Fortunately, Ryan Bennett usually doesn’t believe in ghosts or deities, nor does he worship heaven and earth. After spacing out for a few minutes, Ryan Bennett took a deep breath and slowly calmed down. Earlier, because he was flustered, he hadn’t noticed any changes after the aura flowed out from his eyes. So, he picked up the mirror from the bed again, preparing to observe once more.

This time, being prepared, when that aura shot out from his eye sockets, Ryan Bennett could clearly feel that the aura still seemed to have some kind of connection with him even after leaving his body. He could distinctly sense its existence. Also, the blue-green glow he saw with his eyes didn’t appear in the mirror, which meant that the color was directly present in his own eyes.

“Come back...”

Over the past few days, Ryan Bennett had gotten used to the presence of that cool aura in his eyes. He was genuinely afraid that it might never return once it left, so he silently called out in his mind. To his surprise, the aura that had flowed out really did retract with his thoughts, once again lurking around his eyes. This time, however, his eyes didn’t feel any stabbing pain, and the aura didn’t seem to have diminished.

“I never noticed I had double pupils before! Could it be that this only happened after I got injured? But when I looked in the mirror, apart from that cool aura leaving my body, I didn’t see anything special. Could it be...”

Ryan Bennett felt like he had grasped something, but wasn’t quite sure. He shifted his body, raised his right arm—which had been half-leaning on the bed and was a bit numb—so that his forearm was level in front of his eyes, then focused his gaze.

Once again, a blue-green light flashed before his eyes, but what appeared next shocked Ryan Bennett to his core.

Ryan Bennett was wearing a thick down jacket, with thermal underwear underneath. But as the blue light flashed and the aura left his eyes, he found that, in his vision, the down jacket and underwear on his forearm seemed to vaporize—first becoming blurry, then disappearing altogether. The skin on his arm was clearly visible, as if he were looking through a magnifying glass. Ryan Bennett could even see every pore on his skin in great detail.

“The scene that happened at the hospital this morning was real after all!”

Forcing down his shock, Ryan Bennett was about to shift his gaze to another part of his body when his eyes suddenly felt sore, followed by a stabbing and burning sensation. His tear glands seemed to burst open, and tears streamed down uncontrollably, just like in the morning, though the stinging was much milder. At the same time, the aura seemed to sense something and shrank back into Ryan Bennett’s eyes. Instantly, the cool sensation dispelled and eased the increasingly intense pain and burning.

“It’s gotten much weaker again, huh?”

After the cool aura returned to his eyes, Ryan Bennett could clearly feel that it had become much weaker. However, since it was directed at his own body, he knew that the dissipated coolness had actually entered the skin of his arm. The forearm, which had been a bit numb, first felt itchy as the coolness entered, then immediately became comfortable, as if filled with strength. Ryan Bennett quickly rolled up his sleeve, but found nothing unusual on the surface of his arm, though he could clearly sense the changes within.

“What on earth is happening to me...”

Staring at the heavy snow falling outside the window, Ryan Bennett fell into deep thought.

Chapter 0006: Double Pupils (Part Two)

A few years ago, Ryan Bennett had watched a Hong Kong horror movie called 【Double Pupils】. He remembered the plot only vaguely—it seemed to be a ghost story about people with double pupils who could see through the worlds of the living and the dead.

After watching the movie, Ryan Bennett became interested in people with double pupils and looked up a lot of information. He found that, according to historical records, only four people truly had double pupils: Cang Jie, Yu Shun, Xiang Yu, and Li Yu. In ancient mythology, those with double pupils were usually considered sages. In ancient times, it was seen as an unusual and auspicious sign, symbolizing good fortune and wealth, and was often associated with emperors.

Qian Qianyi wrote in “Miscellaneous Poems of Xuzhou”: “The traces of double pupils have faded into obscurity, ghostly blue flames before the Ximatai. The ten-zhang yellow tower overlooks the Si River, travelers still speak of the Overlord’s Hall.”

Ryan Bennett’s old family home in Pengcheng was not far from Ximatai—just a few minutes’ walk. As a child, Ryan Bennett often climbed over the wall to play inside, looking at the ancient bronze swords and soldiers’ armor on display, so this poem left a deep impression on him.

However, Ryan Bennett later read some modern medical explanations, which said that this condition was actually due to adhesions and malformations of the pupils. Modern medicine considers it an early sign of cataracts. Because the iris is light-colored, it looks like a large pupil encasing a small one, hence the term “double pupils,” also known as “重瞳.”

But Ryan Bennett felt that the changes in his eyes were different from all of the above. He only manifested double pupils when the cool aura was circulating in his eyes, and the double pupils that appeared were not a large pupil encasing a small one, but two pupils side by side. Moreover, he had never read in any book that those with double pupils in the past had the supernatural ability to see through other people’s clothes.